Not Wanted: #Cashmere frauds – #NZLabour #Christchurch #CREST #Aotearoa #NewZealand #nzpol #Chch #NZ

Cast ye not the first stone, lest it become avalanche — Gospel of John, chapter 8, verses 3–7.*

Reverend Purdie, Cashmere Presbyterian Church, October 2018

2018 is the year, five years after it began, that the Cashmere Residents’ Emergency Support Team (CREST) got taken down. For repair, we’d hope. Though that is uncertain. Bringing certainty will be wresting the great weight, of false witness heaped upon CREST, off of it. Stone by stone, traced back to the throwing hand, demanding withdrawal, exposing rich hypocrisy.

In February, the new business manager at Cashmere Presbyterian chose to crush CREST (a local community volunteer initiative, invited within church walls) to rob CREST role and finances, instead of collaborating through it – as had been the previous minister’s clear promise. This action was downright nasty, largely fraudulent.

The new minister chose not to support the CREST Red Cross project and community lunch event, as led by the Cashmere Residents’ Association (CRA), wanting leadership of community response direct from the church instead. This action reveals fraudulent deceit. It kicked CRA initiative out. It took advantage, to profit from several years’ honest, hard volunteer work at this ‘community hub’. And it first had to destroy its trusting partner: broad, stable, good open leadership at the CRA.

Despite having been part of deciding the 18 February public event date and supporting council permit application, Reverend Silvia Purdie turned around to attack the CREST coordination, with venom, to get at the funds. No negotiation would be entertained on the high price Purdie wanted for church help with the catering and hosting: wholly inappropriate as it was a budgeted CRA activity booked with the church. But hungry eyes were set on a prize. If CREST coordination stood between Purdie and use of the CRA-raised Red Cross funds, then CREST coordination would have to go – which Purdie precipitated with aggressive and false accusations of project impropriety.

Further self-interest dove-tailed into Purdie’s, each enabling the other.

The CRA old guard had undeclared axes to grind. They had previously volunteered then fallen out with the church, over an heritage issue and where their works record was weak. Vengeance was nigh and CREST became instant brunt of it. Aggressive accusations of project impropriety were repeated, though later disproved, to deprive the church of resilience infrastructure investment. Merge of conflicted interests this way, robbing good community service cruelly, exposed the CRA old guard as blindly corrupt: narrowly venal; a sad Purdie match. The CRA funding oversight of CREST was rapidly shut down.

Against these great odds, the CRA-CREST 18 Feb 2018 preparedness exercise event carried through – though savagely and needlessly compromised in scale of outcomes (e.g. our community was forced off ‘our space’ – Cashmere Green – and onto church land, making cause for criticism): facebook.com/events/183405702246003/permalink/192092061377367

180218 would-be-CREST community lunch

CRA-CREST 180218 community lunch event poster

The agendas to destroy CREST, or CRA leadership of it at the church, within Cashmere community, were only just gathering steam. Division and heat would only grow. These are not finished yet.

At stake is potentially increased official support, for community activity in the area, which is generally very tied up: captured and unavailable, in fact.

And so it was when ‘Cashmere was compensated’, eight month’s later, through council funding of Purdie to run the “Cashmere Carnival” – in the space and with the permit that Purdie had denied to CREST (to line herself up for new event funds, eight months later).

Funny, that. It confirms the adage that ‘money will only be spent in Cashmere if it is spent on promoting the Labour Party’. And so it was on 28 October, when all the area Labour politicians rolled out. Smiling and laughing, enjoying the big joke – upon Cashmere itself. Making a very clear point: that Cashmere would be done to, and never doing on its own, ‘ad infinitum’.

‘Cashmere’ Carnivàle 281018

For this was a turn out of Presbyterian parishioners, mostly, from the wider south city and not locals. The church was actually proud of this, that it (by Dr David Troughton) could run up the CREST banner, on this occasion, with no real input from Cashmere residents’ organising at all. The coup to shed CRA, from its CREST planning property, work and opportunity, was well underway.

The dirty Labour-Presbyterian council link to undermine residents is confirmed in the Purdie-Clearwater joy, at placing themselves at the heart of faux Cashmere, on 28/10/18:

Faux Cashmere Carnival 281018

It is astounding, the sheer waste of resource pumped into this two-hour ‘public’ jaunt, to only make the point of ‘who’s in charge’ of all Cashmere community funded project space, to ‘ice the cake’ of Cashmere-CREST independence demolition. Appalling. In great need of being exposed.

Two-hour, faux Cashmere Carnival, 281018

Rev. Purdie enjoys the splash of rate-payer cash, yet behind it, the Labour Melanie Coker face still ‘smells a rat’.

Also sighted present on 28/10/18, at this rates-funded jolly, was Labour Port Hills MP Ruth Dyson.

Error in Cashmere Fire Report, re 15.02.17: “Leona described to me how she sat at her window all night, watching trees burst into flame in the valley above Princess Margaret Hospital” – facebook.com/1434260603455144/posts/cashmere-fire-reportfrom-silvia-purdie-minister-cashmere-presbyterian-church-chr/1847315355482998/ – Fire was on Worsleys Spur, above Cracroft Valley, nowhere near Princess Margaret Hospital. And the message – “today, after the fire, our church will care for our people, be there for others. We’re part of a good network and response systems. I’m thinking a community BarBQ would be good. But there’s not really much we can do” – casts intentional slight upon CREST, which did activate its response hub at the church that next day, on 16.02.17 around control of the fire, lost homes, evacuations and very worried uncertainty. This attack upon CREST follows that from Mrs Purdie’s first arrival at her church post, when she moved CREST’s small store of equipment from its designated place at the church, showing contempt of clear labelling not to move it, and a $50 item (the CREST banner spike) has been missing since that time. Unresolved angst? A hazard in itself. So one year later, rotten Labour-Presbyterian take-down of CRA-CREST began in earnest; in events detailed above.

No CREST partners that had committed to 18.02.18 Red Cross exercise event saw it through – not the church, nor the school, nor CRA committee, and Rotary were inactive with us then. So CREST could not activate as designed to, though volunteers committed to CREST were fully capable of carrying event response to success – with new Business Association invited help. It is strategic lying to say CREST could function normally from that time on until now (this is yet unresolved). Repairing the CRA-Presbyterian relationship is very first order, for CREST to be able to continue authentically. Anything moved without that is plain deceit.

Bellowing Clearwater misinformation for Labour is: https://hail.to/cashmere-primary-te-pae-kereru/publication/EIr27V2/article/Q44WTff – where all partner parties absented from agreed CREST 180218 event, so have no valid vote for bringing such fake news about. Simply dangerous.

CREST is formally suspended, for safety and repair, as it must be – see COMMUNITY NOTICES.

If people knew that, in approaching a church, there was risk of being beaten up and robbed, they really would not go there. This has been the Cashmere residents’ group experience, to learn from.

To recap, Reverend Purdie made a grab for the maximum possible Red Cross CREST generator and water tank fund amount, to be diverted into her church consolidated fund to run a public event, contrary to the facts that CRA had raised the fund to run the event and all the related items were strictly budgeted. The concluding, reporting-to-community event, was not the main purpose – as the minister insisted it be. So Purdie attacked the Red Cross project coordinator, to undermine it all and ultimately stop the generator and water tank purchases from being completed. Shame!!!

From this whiff of funding, some church leaders now push to complete Mrs Purdie’s attack upon the residents’ leadership of CREST, for travelling on without us. But significant investment has already been made there, and this grab falls far beside the point – of serving Cashmere residents, in readiness. Of being able to connect Cashmere residents, in our own interest, in an emergency, without dirty politics.

CREST had formed at the church in 2013 because: a. the door was open; b. an inviting Community Centre sign stood outside; c. Christchurch city council (Cr Clearwater) had refused Cashmere its own community centre, at the time of Cashmere Masonic Lodge building sale; d. conversations had been taking place about a community response hub in the church facility, since its 2009 upgrade, between its managers and city council CDEM**; and e. because of interest in preparedness by CRA members post-earthquakes, that moved to utilise the opportunity of meeting space to organise CREST and start the Cashmere response planning. CREST, through overwhelming failure of institutional support on 18.2.2018 plan exercise day, has had to be withdrawn from service – temporarily? Reverend Purdie caused that, with equally destructive help:

Cashmere Residents’ Association (CRA)
Note, uploaded reports to Companies Office (search # 697181): CRA Financial Report AGM 2017 and CRA Financial Report 31 Feb 2018 – “I / we Leona Murahidy (Secretary) certify that the annual statement attached has been approved by the members of a general meeting held on 21st day of March 2018 for 2017.” – As with the dates referenced, and the disappeared $9,312.50 CREST Red Cross project balance revealed in comparison here, everything about Murahidy ‘management’ in Cashmere is fictional. Unaccountable. Too often dishonest. Of extreme harm.

23 May 2018, a CRA Special General Meeting did happen, that had capacity to make the above declaration true. But before that, on 21 March, a closed and domesticated ‘committee’ meeting would have taken place. This (basically illegal) role confusion sums up the huge liability Leona Murahidy is to Cashmere community organising. Devastation of constructive and viable systems lay in its wake. The year has mostly been a write-off, due to this. Someone, our community, has to bring the CRA back on track. Or suspend it, for safety and regrouping, adding vision for change.

The October 2018 CRA AGM put this committee on a very short leash, until February 2019. Officer written reports were read but not given out or made public yet. Read an AGM review here. CRA has run outside of its Constitution all year – by Associate member illegal votes, etc. etc.

Ms Murahidy and family/cohorts are running a private club – in the name of Cashmere Residents’ Association – to further very particular, less than community, interests. When a CRA committee member pointed out that the 2017 financial report needed to be uploaded to the Companies Office, but after membership endorsement through a Special General Meeting therefore due, the response was instant and unconstitutional expulsion – and then the false financial reporting. Completely sackable offences by Murahidy and crew; looking prosecutable. – Not a transparent organisation or responsibly open to all as it should be: true victim of Murahidy-Labour ‘activism’.

Summary
The link between all points of wreckage done to Cashmere and its sound resilience program (up until this year) is that of Labour affiliation or alliance by the above main actors. No question. These are public figures who have generated an absolute shambles out of nothing, to advance their own Labour-loyalist grubby career agendas. Performances have been corrupt. Caustically jealous and vengeful. Acquisitive.

The above incidents speak to the lengths that the Labour Party network will go, to manipulate communities, to assert outright authority over them, and to waste any measure of good value in building up social hegemony this way.

There must be political neutrality for good community organising to thrive. Cashmere, its Residents’ Association and Emergency Support Team, to succeed, must claim this back through thoughtful shared action. It is to our collective loss and significant risk otherwise.

Kia kaha

* N.B. Those deep in religion do not understand religion.

** CDEM = Civil Defence Emergency Management
e.g. see Nationwide test of Emergency Mobile Alert 25 November 2018.

#Environment #Canterbury in focus #NewZealand regional #democracy #ECan #NZ

It has been six long, troubled years since Canterbury lost regional democracy. This year it is being allowed back in partial form by central government. We must celebrate and utilise the consultative opportunity this change of course provides. Given the mounting challenges that Canterbury faces, it is at least worth asking, can democracy provide greater solutions? The answer is undoubtedly yes.

Ko Waimakariri te awa, Ka Pakihi Whakatekateka o Waitaha – the Waimakariri River, Canterbury

Government intervention at Environment Canterbury (ECan) in 2010 turned long-standing threat into action.

Post-Muldoon, post-SMP farming subsidy, Labour governments had forged rural recovery on an intensive dairy model, birthing export co-operative giant Fonterra as one pinnacle. Growth upon growth characterised an industry fast becoming the nation’s leader.

In Canterbury the most ‘fertile ground’ for dairy expansion was found, by tapping underground water and applying nitrogenous fertiliser to former dry-lands. But this massive growth spurt had natural limits – aquifers are finite and their increased depletion, combined with more fertiliser and waste run-off, began to degrade surface water. This the public noticed and said so loudly.

Could Labour keep Canterbury dairy growth going, against natural limits and growing public concern? ‘Yes’, said the Labour-led regional council, to Labour government pressure – with new water storage, irrigation schemes and environmental mitigations.

‘Get on with it quicker’ said an incoming National government from 2008, soon throwing the elected council out and replacing them with appointed commissioners.

Tangata whenua, the indigenous ‘people of the land’, rightly wanted more say and democracy was poorly delivering it. Appointments made with iwi / tribal corporate Ngai Tahu could start resolving this also.

The first remedy, in the return to regional democracy, will be ensuring representation belongs equally to tangata whenua. The primary challenge facing ECan, therefore, is how to structure a return to democratic representation that guarantees the appropriate kaitiaki / resource stewardship role of Ngai Tahu.

The next challenge being, is there enough water for all users wanting it? This is a matter of careful sharing, and in good governance.

The Canterbury Water Management Strategy (CWMS) was developed, and in 2009 launched, by an elected council collaborating with the region’s mayors. Commissioners have been rolling the CWMS out and founding its water Zone Implementation Committees and Plans (ZIPs). Keeping these Zone Committees viable is a function of good democracy – people need to believe and participate in ECan’s resource management plan as a whole.

It is hard to believe trouble greater than rising ‘water wars’ could displace these in Canterbury, but one did – devastating earthquakes.

Now we have seen the capacity for communities to collaborate and recover from deadly calamity, how do we optimise this capacity as a region? ECan co-ordinates local emergency responses and we need reminding and preparedness for what is forecast to come: the Alpine Fault poses a major threat every 330 years or so, the last rupture having been in 1717, around magnitude 8. Are we ready for ‘the big one’ here yet?

ECan’s technical capabilities are tested daily – a very large area to cover, containing some 70% of New Zealand’s freshwater and the nation’s second-biggest city, Otautahi Christchurch. Over half a million people live here which generates transport challenges. Without adequate staffing or accountable public representatives, resources can fall through the cracks and when they do it is scandalous: e.g. Environment Canterbury informs police, Serious Fraud Office of potential taxi fraud news today, story on RadioNZ with Checkpoint interview.

This echoes the finding Millions of litres of water illegally taken: Is ECan doing enough? in June – technically competent elected watch-dogs are needed to raise and maintain a higher level of vigilance. ‘Many eyes, shallower bugs’ is the credo of the open-source software movement and both central and local government need to learn from this international community, fast: the power of engaged communities to help solve the most ‘wicked problems’ on Earth.

For improvements to happen quicker in 2016, I have joined the local election campaign Community Voice .nz – Do join us, do speak – for a safer, more collaborative and prosperous region of Waitaha, Canterbury NZ!

Kia ora

Rik

Updates
A Hawke’s Bay water contamination crisis was erupting at the time of this post:

“Both Hawke’s Bay and Canterbury are among the driest and most drought-prone areas in New Zealand and both rely largely on aquifers for drinking water. Both have braided rivers too, although those in Hawke’s Bay are on a smaller scale than Canterbury.
A rush of irrigation over recent decades in Canterbury has led to significant environmental degradation, including serious contamination of some rural water supplies, loss of biodiversity and transformation of landscapes. Democracy has been damaged too, as development pressures led to the Government sacking the elected Environment Canterbury regional councillors and their replacement with appointed commissioners.
The commissioners promised to improve water quality. They have failed and water quality has continued to decline. Some rural water supplies, including Selwyn, Hinds and Hurunui, are contaminated with high levels of nitrogen and pathogens, leading to people becoming sick.
Canterbury now has the unenviable record of having the highest rate of campylobacter infections in the world, along with 17,000 notified cases of gastroenteritis a year and up to 34,000 cases of waterborne illness annually, according to Canterbury District Health Board figures.
Rates of animal sourced disease such as campylobacter are higher in areas of Canterbury with more intensive animal farming. A Canterbury District Health Board commissioned assessment of the proposed Central Plains Water Scheme found potential health risks to Cantabrians outweighed the probable financial benefits to a few people. Hawke’s Bay should not make the same mistakes as Canterbury. It needs development, particularly in agriculture, that is sustainable and protects water quality and the other natural treasures that contribute so much to the region’s quality of life.”
– Amelia Geary: We want to be able to swim in our rivers, NZ Herald, 31 August 2016

Canterbury’s poisonous lake: still toxic, with dry summer ahead, Stuff, 2 September 2016
See Plan Change 6 (Wairewa) to the Canterbury Land and Water Regional Plan

See wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_pollution_in_New_Zealand

Corporate fascism at #CCC: Sampson to resign #Christchurch City Council #NZLabour #nzpol #NewZealand #politics #Chch

New Zealand’s Labour Party are not trusted to govern. Such is Labour-bureaucrat hunger for power, wealth and influence that meaningful difference from the dominant National Party is long lost. Labour has cast principle of purpose aside and the public know it, distrusting evasive professional politicians. Action to rein in the runaway corporate salaries, corruption and control is what collapsing economies most need but instead Labour promotes these and obstructs any genuine opposition. Fixated upon parliamentary power in Wellington, at community level Labour’s lousy monopolist method is most readily exposed for overdue challenge.

So to the 2016 local elections.

From the Labour point of view (dishonestly branded “People’s Choice” in Christchurch) there are only two permissible actors: staff of the corporate council (that Labour battles head-on for control) and themselves. All other community voice – and actual democracy – Labour extinguishes in pursuit of absolute power. These politicians generate few ideas for solutions and specialise in obstructing other people’s (the public’s) ideas for solutions, or hijacking them sometimes instead. A monopoly of ideas works like that: primarily Labour must silence all visible alternative, by any desperate means that they can; corruption included (like National’s).

The mostly Labour people’s choice for the new south city ward has just been announced, as illustrated here:

Labour deceived people’s choices, 2016

These are all sitting representatives of the current Spreydon-Heathcote Community Board that the Labour-led council has just destroyed, stripping it of suburbs, history, and connection to the commercial inner city, but with one exception: Labour has decided to stand a senior council staff member for one of the public representative seats.

That’s right. Unbelievable but true – here in black and white print – Lee Sampson is a Senior Project Manager in Social Housing at Christchurch City Council and is proposed, by Labour, for election to a public representative decision-making seat!

Clearly Sampson cannot perform both roles, for that would be terrible conflict of interest: Sampson cannot represent both the council and its rate-paying public at the same time, or else this is pure dictatorship. Therefore Sampson must resign his council service role in order to be able to perform public representation. Sampson should do this immediately, if he has integrity, to make his loyalties and intentions clear to the public he now claims to represent!

That members Clearwater, Potter, Mautner and Coker should stand by, endorse and disguise such an appalling conflict of interest shows how far principle has fallen for each of them individually, in pursuit of outright power. And how ruthlessly desperate Labour always is to win, at any cost, to very clear detriment of democracy. The worst of it is the stupid arrogance that Labour selection seems to imbue its anointed local candidates with – all reason and listening is lost. Theirs are the only opinions brought to bear, thereafter.

Democracy is thus shown to have eroding value under Labour, which is why public decisions have also been going backwards with Labour monopoly of so-called ‘opposition’. Genuine public voice, Labour does not allow. Theirs is pretence, that political ‘left’ does not mean ‘right’ for them. Labour are professional frauds.

This explains why, under a Labour / “People’s Choice”-led council, where their party policy is ‘against’ public asset sales, corporatisation of City Care outdoor maintenance and council Social Housing have still proceeded.

New Zealand is unable to elect a different choice of government until it has thoroughly understood the so-called ‘Labour Party’, demolished it as a force and then swept it into the dustbin of history. Only then will Aotearoa-New Zealand society be able to progress past the rotten ravages of corporate fascism it now suffers systematically.

Kia ora

Ref. Southern View, 31-05-16, issuu.com/the.star/docs/116152ob, p.3.

Postscript – Fiddling while Rome burns

“#BREAKING: The Risingholme Community Centre in Chch has been destroyed by fire tonight. @NewstalkZB @nzherald” – twitter.com/lynchinnz/status/739748940900245504

“Second flare up at Christchurch’s historic Risingholme Community Centre” –
stuff.co.nz/the-press/news/80789078/fire-at-christchurch-community-centre

A horrible indictment of Labour-dominated community board, which was long-warned of this high risk to heritage but did nothing – except throw Opawa out of the ward area to advance their own career ambitions 😦 Awful loss.

FYI, re technologised work in ‘the brave new world’ – radionz.co.nz/national/programmes/queensbirthday/audio/201803432/how-to-fix-the-digital-economy-douglas-rushkoff

N.B. Post followed up here: riktindall.wordpress.com/2016/07/24/council-bullies-residents-dalziel-edwards-dictate-christchurch-adventure-park-ccc-local-democracy-chch-newzealand-nz/

End of #Heathcote era: #Christchurch City Council Representation Review 2015 #CCC #RepReview #NewZealand

Spreydon-Heathcote, Christchurch city ward base recently abolished: to be replaced in 2016

It’s official: the Spreydon-Heathcote electoral ward of Christchurch city is no more. It was abolished on Thursday, 13 August 2015, as were all the Christchurch wards laid out before 2004.[1] That’s a good thing, and moment for nostalgia. A memorial to the Heathcote County Council (ex Road Board) that got merged into Christchurch City Council in 1989, the ward name caused confusion: a) the Heathcote Valley was part of Hagley-Ferrymead ward, not Spreydon-Heathcote, and b) the Heathcote/Opawaho River spanned three city wards, including the above two, so could not rightly be claimed by any of them. Confusing! Remedy at hand.

From one ward, two would now be made. The possibilities around renaming are significant, and will be decided by several influences in the lead-up to the 2016 local elections. The new community board name will last at least the next 3-6 years and probably longer. It affects how our local communities can organise themselves, for diverse beneficial outcomes, within accurate boundaries to be settled in the months ahead. This is important.

So what are the choices? Spreydon-Cashmere(-Woolston) if the 16-ward model about to be consulted upon gains support, or Spreydon-Beckenham if the 14-ward model revives, as best improvement upon the seven wards that just got abolished. Get involved and ‪#‎HaveYourSay‬ from 26 August to 9 October, 2015.[2]

Congratulations are due this council either way. A bold step of making representation more direct to local communities, more locally elected, is within reach. This is a product of dividing seven large wards into a larger number of smaller wards, where each turns out about half the current size (except Banks Peninsula). All wards would reduce from having two councillors to having one, in future (like Banks Peninsula). Of all the concessions to be gained from the Local Government Commission, as changes to the city ward system, this could be the second-most-challenging. The first would be total increase in councillor number, beyond a modest one, to three in the 16-ward proposal. The proposal, to be released by Council on Wednesday 26 August, for us looks like this:

Spreydon-Cashmere-Woolston community board proposal, 26 August 2015

The proposal is to be commended for resolving the primary problem Spreydon-Heathcote ward had with its boundaries: division of Waltham, where part had been in Hagley-Ferrymead ward. At last, Waltham will be united through its representation! That’s a big step forward. But the same fundamental principle needs to be applied to all the new ward map – division of communities is mostly unnecessary and quite unacceptable. For this reason the 14-ward model is better, for creating fewer community divisions, and none once refined, as seen here:

14 ward model, draft Spreydon-Beckenham community board area

It is a simple choice, in fact, over where electoral improvements should be made – in and for communities, or for the councillors? That we are being confronted with possibility of the latter (16 councillors) shows that a legal obligation to consult has been inappropriately hijacked for political ends – to meet a council process objective. The cost in this council expansion planswould be one whole community board scrapped, to increase representative weight at the top end. Is this acceptable? There’s a war on between communities and politicians, over who owns democracy, in the Christchurch Representation Review: stop poli-inflation!

Christchurch electors need to look hard at their representation map and voice an opinion over what will work best for them. Because this voice is the only element that can satisfactorily decide the review questions. #‎HaveYourSay‬ from Wednesday!

[1] Graphic – Chch South Library’s future unknown, The Press 10/08/2012,
http://www.stuff.co.nz/the-press/news/7452318/Chch-South-Librarys-future-unknown +
3.3 “That the current wards and communities be abolished.” – p.240, http://resources.ccc.govt.nz/files/TheCouncil/meetingsminutes/agendas/2015/August/Council13August2015OpenAgenda.pdf

[2] http://www.ccc.govt.nz/the-council/have-your-say/whats-happening-now/representative-review/

The Spreydon-Heathcote ward just abolished:

Spreydon-Heathcote ward map

References:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heathcote_County

Along the Hills: A History of the Heathcote Road Board and the Heathcote County Council, 1864-1989 James Watson, Christchurch 1989, https://christchurch.bibliocommons.com/item/show/68121037

Heathcote County Council – Archives New Zealand, Christchurch Regional Office,
http://thecommunityarchive.org.nz/node/71357

#CCC do the job properly! #Christchurch City Council Representation Review #Chch #repreview #NewZealand #NZLabour #NZ

#NZLabour Party #corruption: Paul McMahon, #Christchurch #CCC #NewZealand #Labour politician of prejudice #NZ

Preferential treatment of associates is a hallmark of corrupt administration, of gangster politics. In Labour Party governance, is it the norm? Is this why New Zealand does not trust Labour to be elected? Should it ever? …

As much as Christchurch City is directed by Labour influence, the very pressing question is, how far up the tree does this rot go? For without unobstructed democracy, real majority voice from below, there can be no answers or forward movement in earthquake recovery. It is our moral duty to attack and root out democratic obstacles and political corruption wherever these are found.

Abusing a position of authority to treat associates preferentially is a variety of personal corruption. And this is common practise for Paul McMahon, Labour local government leader and current Chair of Spreydon-Heathcote Community Board.[1] McMahon fails to separate his affiliate loyalty from his council governance role, as is required of an elected board chair.

Whereas on Burwood-Pegasus Community Board it is permitted for a community resilience volunteer to speak and to vote, on McMahon’s Board it is not. The difference? – Whether the volunteer is a Labour Party member. McMahon thus demonstrates a vile corruption.[2]

Another instance of McMahon’s anti-democratic pattern, his manipulation of speaking order as a corrupt Chair, came when he claimed shortage of time, cut off questions of a deputation but then invited them from his party colleagues, Melanie Coker and Helene Mautner. Accepting this preferential treatment, this subordination of community voice to their own bureaucracy, Mautner and Coker implicated themselves in McMahon’s overt corruption too. These also must answer for it.[3]

An Aucklander in Christchurch for the past ten years, McMahon lives outside Spreydon-Heathcote ward so is not part of our community; he just exploits and oppresses it. [A Creationist pastor on the make,?] McMahon’s shoddy governance, his crushing of public voice, stems from dangerous disconnection from reality. A Labour Party is a closed, cliquey mechanism by which second-rate talent can escalate beyond its potential. And then it always comes down.

McMahon is a sloppy Chair and cannot control his own party colleagues: standing orders are not maintained and a bullying environment prevails on his watch through constant partiality in speaking rights. A council continuing to stand by Paul McMahon would be equally corrupt, equally deserving of attack.

McMahon’s dictatorial abuse of office requires that he must STAND DOWN. Immediately.

Answer the charge of corruption and take punishment, Paul. You will become the better for it. Cleanse your wayward soul.

So what did the Labour bureaucrats do once they had illegitimately barred the only trained and experienced civil defence volunteer at their table from communicating in public session with civil defence staff? They showed plain ignorance of how the city’s emergency response works, how its decisions are taken, and an eagerness to implant themselves as interference in action where up to now they have offered none. Clearly, the city is safer without such foolishness.

For those wanting to move John Key’s National government on, of which I am one, we must start with not accepting National’s imitators as replacement. The open crooks in office should not be replaced with the pretend-not-to-be crooks of Labour. Genuine Opposition, of higher ethical and intellectual quality, is essential to lead New Zealand through sustainable development, onto its next plane of prosperity. This must extend democracy, the greatest source for good that industrial society has known, and not restrain it.

Silencing competition anti-democratically is the trademark of Kim Jong-un of North Korea. Labour politics is a related fake-left breed, of no further contribution to humanity: our greatest roadblock instead, which Paul McMahon exemplifies well.

Paul McMahon is a shame upon Labour’s reputation. The New Zealand Labour Party must advise him:

STAND DOWN NOW!

Kim Jong-un McMahon

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Haere atu. Kua mutu.

[1] http://www.ccc.govt.nz/thecouncil/communityboards/spreydonheathcotecommunityboard/
[2] Spreydon-Heathcote Community Board meeting, 5 May 2015.
[3] Opawaho-Heathcote River ‘No-fishing Zone’ objector, Spreydon-Heathcote Community Board meeting, 3 March 2015.

Kia ora.

Postscript – 15/5/15:

Was Dame Margaret correct when she said Christchurch City Council dealt in words other than the truth? http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/8771242/Christchurch-City-Council-totally-incompetent It appears so.

For the record, the minutes in this agenda – at page 5, item 2, 5/5/15 – are falsified: http://resources.ccc.govt.nz/files/TheCouncil/meetingsminutes/agendas/2015/May/SpreydonHeathcoteCommunityBoard-Agenda-15%20May%202015.pdf Today I voted against the adoption of these minutes as ‘a true and correct record’, and not for the first time in relation to minute accuracy there. But this fact never gets recorded. The record never gets put straight. So here I must document the facts; to right the formative wrong.

There was no ‘interest’ to declare in relation to the agenda items listed, and none was declared. However, our board chairman insisted that there was, that I must stand down from the decision-making table during their discussion. I re-countered disagreement with him twice, and the matter was either way in fact none of his business to manage, but my own. That is the law. So Paul McMahon broke the law for personal advantage. Yet faced with the choice of public argument, in which standing orders give him all power to order anyone’s removal from the boardroom, the rational thing to do was to step away, for the time being, and keep the peace of public decorum that good offices require. McMahon had succeeded, from of a party-political agenda of aggressive bias, to create a discussion (leading to ‘perception’) of conflict of interest, illegitimately – to rudely drive competition out of the expected democratic debate for which rate-payers elect and hire us. For that work Paul McMahon characterises the council he represents as dishonest and corrupt. Christchurch City democracy is suffering.

This is the second time that Paul McMahon can be proven to have lied, in a public forum, for political advantage. And both times he has had a particular target he is trying to discredit and disable, and that is the community of Cashmere and communities’ independent ability to organise their own resilience well-being. For some reason.

McMahon’s law-breaking is important to recognise and understand. It explains why Labour, McMahon’s affiliated party, is not trusted by New Zealand electors to govern. And that is for their dishonesty, their corrupt lack of principle – their abandonment of the sector they claim, in their commercial branding, to represent.

Cast as ‘left’ on the political spectrum, Labour are in fact a dirty platform monopoly of semi-professionals, setting the pattern of misleadership for all the fake left. Fake because the general public can see straight through Labour (and its imitators, like the Greens and MANA) and are seldom fooled into electing them to significant office. Fake because Labour cannot be trusted to make and uphold law that they do not themselves respect, hypocritically. Double-standards do not wash.

The real left knows that law is all we have to cohere society, in the main, and does respect it. Being in a small political minority thus, with interests the same as the general public, the real left is most often disempowered – like the public it serves – by the wide mass of crooks in government.

Let us change this status quo, for a better now and future. Build the Left Opposition. Kia ora.

19/5/15 – Mike Yardley: Give community boards more power?
http://www.stuff.co.nz/the-press/opinion/68636843/mike-yardley-give-community-boards-more-power “do our community boards currently comprise the requisite calibre and nous, to make the hard calls and reach firm decisions, frugally and fairly?” – The presentation in question: https://youtu.be/uPV0U6Vl3pk and board chair response: http://paulmcmahon.info/image/119538624772

20/5/15 – Observation from direct experience:

You would think that Labour-aligned decision-making on a community board would be to enact what was best for the community, but it is not. Labour representative decisions always reflect, first and foremost, what will best enhance and reinforce their power and control OVER the community, their collective hold on their seats, and what is best for the community second. Labour local reps constantly watch for good ideas that they can champion – having few of their own – to ride their way to popularity through local news reports, monopolistically. So the Labour-aligned approach to community development comes across as erratic and making little sense, being parasitic in fact. Community is much stronger without it.

[page maybe still being drafted – please check back later]

Alan Turing: The Imitation Game review. #AlanTuring #computer #history #Enigma #mythology #TheImitationGame

Thank you to all involved in making The Imitation Game film – writers, director, producer, cast and crew, etc. It is a truly insightful watch, a most excellent movie.[1] What it taught me anew was the moment of history, when war became won not by physical, material force, but by power of abstraction, by calculated information. Horrendous propaganda was met on its own terms, breaking new ground. The film too is a product of this, with shaping mythology a never-ending task – much like the mathematics profiled.

Alan Turing photo licensed under Fair Use via Wikipedia – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Alan_Turing_photo.jpg

Alan Turing’s ‘math’ (for he studied at Princeton which clearly had consequences) – arguably the pinnacle of British science in the twentieth century – cohered a team that defeated Nazi dictatorship and the leading German science of the day: there’s was rocket technology, e.g. (more on this later).
The Imitation Game portrays gargantuan subtle shift in the World War II balance, in a thoroughly believable way, and the lesson here is one every human being will benefit from learning. Immensely.
For we are all drawn ever-deeper into the technical result of Turing’s practical and theoretical work, every day – such as your ability to read this review, over ICT.[2]
The greatest mystery of our lives unfolds before our eyes – ‘the Universal Machine’ that Alan Turing uniquely conceived.
That The Imitation Game focuses liberally on Turing’s divergent, non-mainstream sexuality, that could yield no progeny, mostly misses the point, the meaning of his life. One could ask why; or just provide an alternative script..
.
Creative Britain (no, Hollywood!) proudly relates its 1940s propaganda war victory in The Imitation Game which endeavours to extend the role: many are sacrificed for the benefit of the most, purportedly, in this scenario. Turing’s ‘character flaw’ is magnified to explain his reported suicide, in the dramatisation of his life, where much more plausible is his Cold War murder. If Turing did tell his story to the Manchester detective as the movie depicts, then he had breached the state secrecy demanded of him (also shown in the movie: “If any of you breathe a word of this you’ll be hanged for High Treason”) and signed his own death warrant, effectively.
The question is, though, which secret service assassinated Turing – the British or the American? Or both together? Despite wartime integral connection, in 1954 both were building hegemony against Stalinist Russia. Bigger than this collaboration, they were at commercial conflict with each other by then too, founding competitive computer industries out of times of deep economic depression and destruction. So the United States probably had most to gain from Turing’s premature departure. A fair assumption to make, given what was at stake and what wasn’t. Turing’s post mortem report says “Death appeared to be due to violence.”[3]
But The Imitation Game maintains form and sets up the metaphors, determinedly, of the received version of Turing’s death: the cyanide spilt in the break-in and the apple shared as chief symbolic means of disassociation remedy. In this way it regurgitates the myth of a fatally flawed personality ending itself. Too convenient. Turing wasn’t unhappy. Turing knew too much.
The Imitation Game falls short of telling Turing’s main story, of documenting his real significance – the system value he created and lost. Whereas the Soviet access to academic English intelligence was part of Allied victory and explained in the film, post-war this became intolerable. Where doubt may have existed over Turing’s promises and stability, at that time could his secrets be left at risk? No, and there was likely gain in their extinguishing.
What The Imitation Game omitted, as what happened next after the breaking of Enigma, was the probably more important part of cryptographic history. And that was how Allied signals became superior.
The trans-Atlantic cable, dating back to telegraph days, could be tapped by Nazi submarine and obviously was – in the same way that Enigma-encoded radio messages could only be sent in plain sight, on public airways. What the secret breaking of Enigma-code allowed was a higher form of encryption to be invented, using the mathematical algorithms that Turing pioneered. It was these new mechanically induced algorithms that gave birth to modern digital computing.[4] Their immediate value was to securely encode trans-Atlantic signals, and these helped essentially to co-ordinate fighting resources and quicker, less expensively, win the war.
Turing’s time in America, as well as advancing his algorithmic capacity, eased the way for placing cypher and decyphering equipment at either end of the trans-Atlantic cable. This was the world’s first reproduced manufacture of a programmable computer, based on the Polish Bombe model prototype perfected by Turing and his team at Bletchley Park. It necessitated immediate shipping to the United States, which stopped any notion of copyright at step one, and the modern computer era was born – Made in the UK, and with the task of encryption and decryption over the first-ever leg of internet cable converted as its founding application – truly the century’s technical breakthrough, which the next century would open still at siege to.
But if the Germans could never access what was transmitted inside the Atlantic data cable at that time, neither could the Russians ever be allowed to.
Alan Turing’s liberal university background created doubt intolerable at the height of the McCarthyist witch-hunt: “Julius and Ethel Rosenberg were arrested in 1950 on charges of stealing atomic bomb secrets for the Soviets and were executed in 1953.” And, the culmination of his work, built on top of Princeton US mathematical experience – Turing’s algorithmic discoveries as intellectual property – had already been transferred; under wartime conditions bankrupting of Great Britain (duress). More than just a security risk, by the 1950s Alan Turing had been made ‘expendable’.[5]
The story of the American space program, into which German scientists were shipped wholesale post-war, is very well known: success built upon that of V1 and V2 rocketry that rained automaton terror on Great Britain during The Blitz, though ultimately failing. – To where would the yet unseen impact of the V3 be directed?
The modern computer industry is the inside, even more influential story – only the contributing country was not a wartime enemy this time, but the main United States ally held over a barrel. Capitalism’s new headquarters gathered in resources cunningly from all over the globe, enabling imperial expansion on a whole new scale.
Alan Turing’s sacrifice was one further price to be paid by a long-running but finally eclipsed British Empire: trade secrets kept safe, down-payment on Cold War security.
Postscript: Author Roger Bristow, “72, who was a founder member of the Bletchley Park trust, is a former mayor who has spent almost 30 years researching Turing and his work. He has used the post-mortem evidence to develop a theory that the scientist was carrying out secret code-breaking work before his death. And he says the FBI wanted him dead because he held ‘damaging information’ on Russian agents who had managed to get themselves into top American Government jobs.”[6]

[1] The Imitation Game http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2084970/ 2014 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Imitation_Game see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S5CjKEFb-sM

[2] ICT = information and computer technology

[3] What ‘The Imitation Game’ didn’t tell you about Alan Turing’s greatest triumph, 20 February 2015 http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/what-imitation-game-didnt-tell-you-about-alan-turings-greatest-triumph/2015/02/20/ffd210b6-b606-11e4-9423-f3d0a1ec335c_story.html “Alan Turing.. did as much as anyone to create the digital revolution that continues to erupt around us” – well-researched article with academic video clips, which include a still of Turing’s post mortem report: “Death appeared to be due to violence.”

[4] The computer algorithms that run our lives, 23 February 2015 http://www.radionz.co.nz/national/programmes/ninetonoon/audio/20168287/the-computer-algorithms-that-run-our-lives “Seeta Gangadharan is a Senior Research Fellow at the Open Technology Institute in Washington DC. She discusses the automated systems, known as algorithms, that are replacing human discretion more and more often. Algorithms are a simple set of mathematical rules embedded in the software to complete a task. They allow google to rank pages according to their relevance and popularity when people conduct an internet search, and allow internet sites like Amazon and Netflix to monitor our purchases and suggest related items. But open technology advocates say there is not enough oversight of these algorithms, which can perpetuating poverty and inequality.” – 20-minute audio.

[5] Alan Turing: Inquest’s suicide verdict ‘not supportable’ http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-18561092 “the investigation was conducted so poorly that even murder cannot be ruled out.. ‘In a way we have in modern times been recreating the narrative of Turing’s life, and we have recreated him as an unhappy young man who committed suicide. But the evidence is not there.'” 26 June 2012

[6] Was Alan Turing’s death MURDER not suicide? http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/alan-turings-death-murder-not-4799480 12 December 2014

Further reading:

“a number is computable if its decimal can be written down by a machine” – Alan Turing, On Computable Numbers, With An Application to the Entscheidungsproblem, 1936 http://www.cs.virginia.edu/~robins/Turing_Paper_1936.pdf

http://www.biography.com/people/alan-turing-9512017

Turing Committed Suicide: Case Closed

http://www.ip-performance.co.uk/alanturingpostmortemexaminationreport.php

CHAPTER 23 “The third possibility, that Turing was murdered, might seem far-fetched, yet stranger things have been done in the national interest. There was a Cold War on. Could there have been an ‘operation ruthless’ against Alan Turing himself, now that he had managed to get himself classified as one of Europe’s security risks? In 1950 Senator Joseph McCarthy had initiated America’s hysterical ‘McCarthy era’, and by the end of 1953 McCarthyism was in full spate. McCarthy declared that homosexuals who were privy to national secrets threatened America’s security.35 In Britain, David Cornwell—better known as novelist John Le Carré—worked for both MI5 and MI6 during the 1950s and the 1960s. Cornwell told the Sunday Telegraph in 2010: ‘We did a lot of direct action. Assassinations, at arm’s length.’36 ‘We did some very bad things’, he said. There is a bare possibility that Turing was murdered, but in terms of evidence the most that can said be said for this hypothesis (apart from the curious business about the shoes) is that Turing was clearly on the security services’ radar during the previous year’s ‘Kjell crisis’, described in Chapter 10.” Ref.36 ‘British spies carried out assassinations during Cold War, claims former agent Le Carre’, Mail Online, 29 August 2010. http://www.beck-shop.de/fachbuch/leseprobe/9780199639793_Excerpt_001.pdf

Was Bletchley Park code breaker Alan Turing murdered? Shocking claims made by former Milton Keynes mayor http://www.miltonkeynes.co.uk/news/local/was-bletchley-park-code-breaker-alan-turing-murdered-shocking-claims-made-by-former-milton-keynes-mayor-1-6467202

http://www.warhistoryonline.com/war-articles/was-alan-turing-murdered-author-roger-bristow-says-yes.html “Turing had been doing some secret work just before he died. Roger Bristow maintains that the German Enigma code cracker was killed by the FBI because he held secrets that were either intensely embarrassing or damaging. The author further said that before he died, Alan Turing had been working on operation Verona, a top secret affair, which dealt with the deciphering of wartime radio signals for the identification of Russian agents sent as spies in the United States. According to him, several of these agents were able to penetrate prominent positions in the government including one who became a personal assistant to then US President Franklin Roosevelt.” Ref. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2870499/Was-Alan-Turing-murdered-New-book-claims-Enigma-machine-genius-didn-t-kill-all.html 11 December 2014

A Poor Imitation of Alan Turing, 19 December 2014 http://www.nybooks.com/blogs/nyrblog/2014/dec/19/poor-imitation-alan-turing/ “even if you believe that Turing was driven to his death, The Imitation Game’s treatment of his fate borders on the ridiculous.”

Decoding Apologies to Alan Turing: Is Post-Mortem Pardon Meaningless? 31 December 2014 http://www.thecritique.com/articles/decoding-apologies-to-alan-turing-is-post-mortem-pardon-meaningless/ “In particular, the circumstances surrounding Turing’s prosecution and death have long been suspicious. Is there more to the story, and might it require government cooperation and a team of investigative historians to get to the bottom of it? I do not mean to stoke conspiracy, the McCarthy-era paranoia about ‘perverts’ going rogue and trading military secrets for gay Soviet sex makes one wonder.”

http://sites.duke.edu/randomthoughts/2015/01/18/two-movies-about-alan-turing/

The Long Road to ‘The Imitation Game’ http://www.kcrw.com/news-culture/shows/the-business/the-long-road-to-the-imitation-game “Director Morten Tyldum and writer and producer Graham Moore tell Kim Masters how the journey of making their Oscar-nominated film about codebreaker Alan Turing started years ago at a fateful cocktail party. Former sitcom writer and novelist Graham Moore and Norwegian director Morten Tyldum may seem like an unlikely pair to be behind The Imitation Game, a movie about a British mathematician in World War II. They were brought together by an independent producer who snatched up the script after it languished at a studio for a year. Now, their indie about Alan Turing is up for eight Academy Awards, including best picture, best director and best screenplay. Today, Alan Turing is considered the father of computer science. But the genius who broke Germany’s Enigma code during World War II–saving countless lives as a result–was never publicly recognized for his achievements during his lifetime–or for many years after his death at age 41 in 1954. Rather he was persecuted for homosexual acts, which remained illegal under British laws that weren’t wiped from the books until 2003. Turing was granted a posthumous pardon in 2013.
In The Imitation Game, Benedict Cumberbatch plays a very eccentric Turing in a role that earned him an Oscar nomination for best actor. The film garnered eight nominations total, including including best picture, best director and best screenplay. But for years, it looked doubtful that the film would ever even get made. Our guests, director Morten Tyldum and writer and producer Graham Moore, may seem like an unlikely matchup on this project. The Imitation Game is Tyldum’s first film in English and former sitcom writer Moore’s first film period. They tell Kim Masters about the film’s creation story, from how it grew out of a chance run-in at a cocktail party, to a “lost year” at Warner Bros, to a hungover casting conversation held via Skype. Throughout it all, they were determined to stay true to their vision of telling the story of a genius and a hero, a man who was unfairly persecuted, and whose achievements had been kept secret for far too long.” – 20-minute KCRM.com audio.

Alan Turing 1912–1954

Alan Turing: The Enigma biographer website.

AlanTuring.net computing history archive.

The Turing Digital Archive TuringArchive.org

Wondering why anyone should care to write this? – There are legion amateur computing fans and everyday users not even knowing that they are (upon smartphones and touchpads). We don’t all look up to Steve Jobs or Bill Gates for inspiration, and often find, when we do look, Alan Turing’s versatile AI ideas to deify instead.

The closing scene of The Imitation Game, positing a broken Turing in love with Victory machine (somehow renamed “Christopher”) as pitiful and demented substitute for true human bond, is worse than fiction. It is sheer insult, making fetish of the individual.

The gratuitous fantasy can only serve to provoke comments like “F___ you, Weinstein. Just what are you trying to hide?” …

Nexus Turing, war became primarily one of information flow (over that of destructive arms). Which can give us hope for building a better world, starting immediately..

[Text under development – more editing likely.]

See https://books.google.co.nz/books?id=y1MjDgAAQBAJ, The Turing Guide, By Jack Copeland, Jonathan Bowen, Mark Sprevak, Robin Wilson, Oxford University Press 2017.

#InternetParty viability looks like this

Full credit to Kim Dotcom for getting the IMP waka moving, but the sooner he hands over his rudder the better. Kim’s hirelings are building a ‘representative’ structure per instruction, but will Kiwi people endorse them? Only if democratic norms prevail – something New Zealanders understand and value a lot.

Without rank-and-file input for where the Internet Party is going, it is bound to hit the rocks of reaction. So let’s stand up for what is right in representation and take the reins – should Kim be willing to pass them on.

#InternetParty members withdraw labour, strike 4 #democratic elections to Kumar Harre roles. Upgrade their 1-seat campaign 2 defeat National

— Rik Tindall (@RikTindall) June 3, 2014

Otherwise the negative publicity based on sound analysis will prevail and drag Internet Party followers down:

Octo-Kim – June 2014

…… A bigger, more meaningful campaign than what has been proposed is required, to replace the National government in 2014. It must be good, just, open and fair. Let us get on with it. Stop the Internet Party write off

#Christchurch #flood communities take charge #EQNZ #Chch #NewZealand #Canterbury #Water #NZ

Done to by repeated earthquakes, storms and flood since 2010, threatened Christchurch home owners must avoid becoming political footballs in 2014, now. The silly season of public discourse is upon us, with the lack of real choice in general elections.

Already we have seen the pointless, predictable lurch between non-solutions twice: legal synthetic cannabis was made illegal with no means of transition for its victims; and our city council’s consultant’s report on its finances will next be matched by the Earthquake Minister’s – why didn’t the Mayor just save rate and tax payers this profligate expense? We already knew the parlous situation we are working through so why add to it by overpaying ‘experts’ just to state the obvious? For argument’s sake? As of today we’re being sold the pretend choice of who will be delivering tax cuts, from fake Beehive budget surplus, come September.

Descent into ‘he said, she said’ along National-Labour lines does not help struggling Christchurch and Canterbury one bit. With central and local government arguing over who must respond to the recent flood losses and realisations, affected communities must just get on with it.

Council’s Flooding Taskforce report is a good start in a concentrated timeframe, if only for highlighting what must follow it.[1] Immediate, simple steps are identified but mostly it’s the mapping that helps us.

District Plan change forecasts for 100-year sea level rise, in the range of climate change symptoms, were released updated in March. Already Christchurch is having to adapt to significant aqueous effects. This is our loud wake-up call.

Working against centralised solutions is the sheer scale of the problem. But now at least we can see it plain:

Christchurch Flooding Map 2014 – CCC Taskforce

Since the earthquakes, communities have pulled together to get through each crisis. Now moving forward means getting more organised.

The Christchurch City Council’s Flooding Taskforce was a good start but now needs breaking down into manageable chunks and catchments. Each particular area needs to initiate its own flood taskforce – Dudley Creek / Flockton, Lower Avon, Southshore, Sumner, Heathcote Valley, Woolston and Lower Heathcote, Upper Heathcote (or Heathcote-Opawaho as a very large whole), Lyttelton, Little River, Akaroa, Kaiapoi, etc. Invite the authorities to advise your local area taskforce, once it is set up. Start with your own stretch of street and look towards contributing to catchment management, in the long term.

Communities must take this initiative for a number of reasons: you are best placed to respond to the next natural event; central resources are inadequate and stretched far too thin; discuss and decide what remedies you collectively judge appropriate for your area – river dredging, bank widening and embankment, floor raising, section walling or buy-out, etc. – because this locally agreed message is what the authorities need to hear; gain detailed knowledge of street property effects together but protect the values and information – supply the authorities with accurate statistics only, through your own elected spokespeople; “information is power” – your power, it is said.

The severe limitation of Mayor Dalziel’s report, in summary: “The extreme rainfall event on 4/5 March 2014 was not regular flooding and requires longer term solutions. It was therefore considered outside the scope of the Taskforce.”[3] And no spend for Southshore.

Locally, get your picture and voice crystal clear. Then it can be expressed most usefully to the powers that be, for action.

In the meantime, if there’s flooding tomorrow and you need help dealing with it, call Council on 941-8999 or lodge a Service Request online.[4] But do start talking to your neighbours about urgent response today.[5]

Update 22 May 2014:
Flood victims told they need to resolve problems themselves (3′ 10″) RadioNZ Morning Report
“At the first of the Christchurch City Council’s community meetings to look at flooding issues, residents on the Banks Peninsula have been told it is up to them to solve their own problems.”[6]

[1] http://www.ccc.govt.nz/cityleisure/projectstoimprovechristchurch/landdrainage/taskforce.aspx

[2] http://www.stuff.co.nz/the-press/news/southern/9961861/Fed-up-Heathcote-residents-want-action

[3] p.6. @ http://www.ccc.govt.nz/floodmitigation first draft: http://resources.ccc.govt.nz/files/CityLeisure/projectstoimprovechristchurch/landdrainage/FloodingTaskforceTechnicalReportCompressed.pdf

[4] http://www.ccc.govt.nz/homeliving/makeaqueryorreportaproblem/index.aspx

[5] CANTERBURY’S FLOOD AFFECTED RESIDENTS – https://www.facebook.com/groups/435162109919930/440052116097596/

[6] http://www.radionz.co.nz/national/programmes/morningreport/audio/2596857/flood-victims-told-they-need-to-resolve-problems-themselves

More:

http://www.stuff.co.nz/the-press/opinion/10000094/Secretly-wanting-to-give-up-on-Chch “sold up, cashed up and ready to go.. a functioning metropolitan city will arise again too late.. We, and what was, are over.. The floods this year are finishing off hope amongst the wounded of our city.” – Greg Jackson 02/05/2014

http://www.stuff.co.nz/the-press/news/10006722/Mayor-Cross-agency-flood-solution-needed 04/05/2014

http://www.stuff.co.nz/the-press/news/10008102/River-debris-cleared-in-flooding-cleanup “Mayor Lianne Dalziel said that one option being considered was buying out properties in flood-affected areas.. It’s clear people want to stay.. if they can” 05/05/2014

http://www.stuff.co.nz/the-press/news/10029993/Labour-calls-for-flood-relief-urgency 10/05/2014

http://www.stuff.co.nz/the-press/news/10035287/Flooding-protection-could-cost-13-6m +
http://www.stuff.co.nz/the-press/news/10034373/Government-holding-back-on-quake-costs 12/05/2014

http://www.stuff.co.nz/the-press/news/10036716/Flood-prone-residents-face-long-winter 13/05/2014

http://www.stuff.co.nz/the-press/10054364/High-Court-ruling-a-blow-for-residents Port Hills rockfall risks 17/05/2014

http://www.stuff.co.nz/the-press/opinion/editorials/10057855/Editorial-Flooding-data-gets-swamped “the problem seems to be even worse than the council understood” Press Editorial 19/05/2014

http://www.stuff.co.nz/the-press/10065978/Mayor-wants-help-for-flood-prone-right-now 21/05/2014

Why #Christchurch Cathedral fell: #Anglican political corruption #NewZealand #water #EQNZ #22Feb #Chch #SaveOurWater #NZ #Baal

As the fog of environmental war descends upon Wellington, a nation’s capital, we are reminded that Earth punishes a degraded humanity; and that Earth’s forces were once known as God.[1]

Where evolution carries intelligence and democratic sharing of the greater tribe forward, contentious, divisive dull ego, that holds these back, is an abhorrence to nature – which has ways of starting over again. This is the lesson of ChristChurch, at the three-year anniversary of its commercial heart’s levelling. What sayeth that lesson?

#1. A cultural centre has shifted radically and its spire, the city’s icon, no longer stands over All.

Why? – The tale of an errant priest doth pertain:

Christchurch Cathedral, 22 February 2011, set to meet its fate

This photograph, by Aranui’s Angela Thomas, surfaced on facebook on 17 January 2014. It is extraordinary, in that it was taken the night before large earthquake shattered the tranquil scene, on 22 February 2011 – three years ago. Rest In Peace those lost that day. Condolences to their families and friends. And great sympathy to the many and variously injured. Our story goes on. For generations to come.

This picture helps to decipher, to unpack and to understand, massive trauma.

For it clearly shows the shrine to Ba’al, created at the Cathedral’s doorstep, in the days before it fell to natural wrath. The wooded grove is the Biblical signature of such shrines to Ba’al, along with the bovine topiary statue. This signal cultural break – towards worship of Mammon – explains why heaven and earth didst protest, why ‘God’ hath rent this idyllic scene permanently.

The Dean of the church had been hailed in time, but scorned the Call greedily and foolishly. At Knox Church, on Bealey Avenue and Victoria Street corner, Dean Beck heard the following citation, during the local election forum of September 2007, from the Save Our Water campaign:

JEREMIAH 2,13 For my people have committed two evils; they have forsaken me[,] the fountain of living waters, [and] hewed them out cisterns, broken cisterns, that can hold no water.

This ancient quote referred to a good way of life, being lost as artificial storage for irrigation transforms the (Canterbury Plains) land into filth and damaging emissions: these form a travesty that cannot last.

The veracity of Save Our Water core was confirmed when the campaign’s main slogan – Keep Our Water Pure – kicked off a global meme of awareness, such as the cryptic and derivative New Zealand tourism “100% Pure” advertising. Authorities are yet to settle the environmental debt, however. And starting with Dean Beck, false pride needed to be put to one side, to validate the pure message of integrity – that everyone wants.

#2. We, the people, elected to Save Our Water – in Christchurch East (constituency of Environment Canterbury Regional Council) at least. No coincidence that the east, which includes the central city, should feel the brunt of social and economic loss, when democratic voice is denied.

For denied it was, by the 2008-201? National government, who swept the people’s clear wishes aside. In April 2010, National replaced the elected with hand-picked business and morally compromised voices. By September 2010, Earth rebellion had dramatically begun.

So how did our priest respond?

In winter 2010, Beck made pact with the politically compromised, not to Save Our Water but to promote Our Water Our Vote instead. A fair cry but a spoiler campaign, by a Labour-Green merger to monopolise progressive and environmental initiative, for controlling and centralising local election outcomes (upon Wellington, much like National). They too shut out and denied Save Our Water, ignoring the biblical Word.

That year Beck sank deeper in the moral mire of conflicted interest and political partisanship, when he chaired a mayoral candidate election forum, at the Catholic school in New Brighton. Selectively he ensured only incumbent Bob Parker and Labour candidate Jim Anderton were invited and made centre of aural attention. Shutting down alternatives corruptly this way, Beck was narrowing the pool to his own advantage.

By 2012 the purpose was clear, when Beck rode the change-wave into city council office in an east Christchurch by-election. But the talent of this pool was then further proved wanting, as Beck retired, out of energy, come 2013. In the meantime he had extended his sinecure, nonetheless, to replace ChristChurch income lost to his conniving sin, that he had enjoined from National via Labour-Green – all rejecting Jeremiah and to Save Our Water. Shame on them.

It can be no surprise, in knowing this scripture, that Beck’s church was ripped out from under him. For he had been put on very clear notice, to act for Good and not a false god.

Save Our Water launch, winter 2007

Save Our Water launch, winter 2007

Where some have mistaken Save Our Water for an economic injunction, it is actually a spiritual one – to bring us onside with universal All. ~ Rock met rock and our whole world shook, turning us upside down..

Christchurch Cathedral 2011 and water protest cairn, of winter 2010

Christchurch Cathedral 2011 and water protest cairn, of winter 2010

#3. Peter Beck’s sin of hypocrisy and false witness rests in fronting Labour-Green’s city direction, built on Our Water Our Vote collusion to exclude Save Our Water, when it was Labour’s agribusiness developments that sucked Canterbury dry from the 1990s onwards.

Beck’s haughty rejection of Jeremiah’s warning, to pave his own entry into local politics, spelt rapid ruin for the church in his care. His Labour method of abuse of office to achieve higher status (electioneering with a dog-collar) was seen again this week with the forced exit of Shane Taurima from TVNZ. The reason that Labour-Green is ineffective opposition to National is their refusal to realise that they actually have to be different: non-corrupt.[2]

Only new thoughts and ways of doing things, justice and better democracy can put this city back together again, with identity integrity, because the old material way has most obviously failed. Make this city one body again, one church if you like, that Jesus could indeed be proud of. Or Mohammed, let praise be upon him equally, and any other fe/male prophet that may name. And never forget the downtrodden, the women and children amongst these. Amen.

[1] Fog lingers around Wellington Airport, 3 News, 20 Feb 2014

[2] TVNZ manager resigns over fundraising revelations, 3 News, 17 Feb 2014

Postscript: A loud “two evils” 22-2-2011 echo, from the heavens, when twin tornadoes straddled Christchurch the day after the anniversary’s passing, causing property damage, with one vortex crossing ‘Double-Corner Road’ in North Canterbury ~ http://www.radionz.co.nz/news/national/237042/civil-defence-checks-tornado-hit-houses ~ Forsooth. Forsaged, upon manifest Word. Let there Be cognizance!

And Justice: http://www.radionz.co.nz/news/regional/237120/engineer-to-review-ctv-info-for-police

VOTE People First #Christchurch New Zealand 2013 #CCC #Chch #NZ #EQNZ #CDEM #Canterbury

People First platform 20 Aug 2013

Join the campaign for rebuild justice, democracy and accountability in Canterbury. Make our main city an inclusive centre of hope for the 21st century, an icon of peaceful, humanitarian progress.

See: facebook.com/RikTindall4Chch for more information, and ‘like’ to support.

Kia ora 😀